Monday, November 21, 2011

For the last three to four months I have been watching Emily in her swim practices and have noticed that she just wasn't herself in the pool. She looked like she was struggling during practices and her times during meets were starting to get worse. Nothing she did seemed to work and she has been very stressed. I have had this inkling, this feeling, that there was a deep seeded root to her problem and just could not put my finger on it.

Today was the turkey trot race at her school and Jerry has always taken half a day to run it with the kids. Last year Emily placed second in her class and 25th overall. This year she had to keep taking breaks and came in 65th overall. That is still an amazing accomplishment, but not her best. I had flashes to swimming and that feeling came back. That mother's instinct! Jerry looked at me, after she walked away, and basically told me to book a doctor's appointment. I asked if he thought she had asthma and he said yes.

Bingo! Asthma! I have lived with exercise induced asthma all my life, makes sense that she might too. It all makes sense. The fact that she was always out of breath. The fact that her times were getting worse. The fact that she looked so dang slow in practice but swore she was working hard.

Today I decided to try something. I gave her a puff off of my inhaler. I doubt it could do any harm to her and it would really tell us if this is the problem. Well....she had an amazing work out! I haven't seen her look this good in a long time, and she had a smile on her face as she got out of the pool. When I asked her how practice went she said it was amazing because she never got tired. She felt like she could swim faster and felt energized afterwards. This just convinced me that I am right.

Monday, November 7, 2011

I feel like I have failed as a mother. I know that sounds dramatic, but that is how I feel.

Emily is so stressed right now and I don't know how to get through to her or how to help her. I feel completely helpless. Her grades are dropping and her times in swimming are considerably slower then last season. I know I've pushed her before, but she always seemed to be able to handle it. I have made a conscious effort to step back and not push her this year where swimming is concerned. I've told her that swimming should be fun and asked her if there was something else she would want to try. She always says no. That swimming is her sport.

I just had a talk with her teacher about a test she took. Long story short, she retook a test and still got a B-. Now I understand that a B- is not necessarily a bad grade, but it's not like her. She only got 4 wrong in the first place and two of them she got right on the original test. That is just careless. I also found out, by talking to the teacher, that she had a study guide to bring home and I never was even aware that there was an upcoming test much less a study guide for it. The weekend before this big test was her USS swim meet. She put so much weight on that meet, and none on her school work. Its upsetting to me. I am at the point where I feel I need to pull her from the team for awhile until she gets her grades back, but then I think maybe I'm overreacting.

I just feel like I have failed her. I don't know where to go from here and I am very overwhelmed myself. Maybe I am making more out of this then I need to, but she has told me how stressed she is but won't tell me why. Maybe she doesn't even understand why. Personally I think she sees all the other kids excelling on their times in swimming and improving and she's not. I don't understand it and have no idea how to help her. She has had the personal, one on one time,with the coach over the summer but is not following through on any of what he taught her. The coach is too busy working with the older kids to see what she is doing or not doing, so that's a bust also.

As far as school goes, she isn't even bringing study guides home to study for tests. In fact, she didn't even tell me about the big social studies test. When I was talking with the teacher this morning I was informed that they had four days to study at home before the test. Why didn't I know about it? I don't think I can take all the heat for this one because I can't read minds, but still.....I must have failed her somewhere.

I really, really, really wish kids came with owner manuals. At least then I'd have some idea on how to troubleshoot this problem.

I also wish I had the money to talk with a counselor. Maybe then I could figure some things out. It sucks having crappy health insurance. :(